


Vixen's Introspection

by Kestrealbird



Category: Lupin III
Genre: A bit of Trans Goemon at the end, Bittersweet, Fujiko Feels, Introspection, Lupin's truly terrible songs, Other, the early days
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-30
Updated: 2018-08-30
Packaged: 2019-07-04 17:26:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,885
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15845928
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kestrealbird/pseuds/Kestrealbird
Summary: While gathering information about the new men that might be constant fixtures in her life, Fujiko muses over each of them and wonders about many things besides.





	Vixen's Introspection

**Author's Note:**

> So I recently caught up with as much of the Lupin franchise as I could find (except Pink Jacket because I couldn't stand it) and man. Man do I have a lot of feelings about this gang. My own personal 'canon' for them is the 'First Contact' movie followed by 90% of the other specials, episodes and films. This was originally supposed to be a fic focusing on Goemon but Fujiko demanded attention and who am I to deny her anything :')

Fujiko hadn't expected to find herself back in Japan as soon she did, but then she also hadn't quite expected to get so involved in the lives of four strays who had no right to be as endearing as they inevitably turned out to be. Fujiko liked to have ‘constants’ that she could fall back on whenever things got a little rough or dicey; money, of course, was at the top of that list. People were usually at the very tailend of said list, though she did have a habit of ranking named individuals on a scale of ‘who is most likely to kill me on sight ' and 'who can I actually use for my own benefit.’

Any person who wanted to be a ‘constant’ in her life needed a background check. She had to know if they were worth the effort and risk of getting emotionally attached or if she should simply be rid of them the first chance she managed to get.

Most of the information she’d gathered on Zenigata was...predictable. A loyal, hardworking man who stuck to his ideals and was so optimistically naive it was a wonder he’d survived in this line of work as long as he had. His love life was barren, and she’d found nothing in the way of living relatives or close friends. That had  been the most surprising thing of all. Fujiko had thought, given his friendly demeanour and rather likeable persona, that Zenigata would have handfuls of friends he could comfortably go drinking with.

She’d felt a twinge of _something_ in her chest when she’d realized that perhaps the nickname ‘Tiger of Tokyo’ wasn’t just about his work ethic, but also his own self-inflicted isolation.

 _Stupid,_ she’d thought. He was only associated with her because of Lupin, after all, so there was no reason for her to get _soft_ on him. Even if he _had_ helped her out a few times, simply because it had been the ‘right thing to do.’

There had been a plethora of information regarding Lupin, but almost all of it was useless to her. She already knew about his past thefts and famous calling cards; it was hard _not_ to know about him in her line of work. Much like Zenigata, there was barely anything to be found about his personal life and people of interest around him. A few past girlfriends - and a boyfriend or two, which shouldn’t have shocked her as much as it did, in retrospect - but nothing overtly important in _learning_ about him.

She’d hoped that maybe her luck would help her dig up something juicy about this family legacy when others had failed to do so, but alas it seemed that Lady Luck’s good graces had been dried up in this department. Or maybe Lupin had simply hoarded it all for himself. She snorted quietly to herself at the thought.

It seemed that anything else Fujiko wanted to learn would have to come from her own hands-on experiences with him, which were proving to be a real _pain in the ass_. Constantly messing with her plans and being too damn good-natured for someone who claimed the title of ‘thief’ and got regularly involved with shady mafioso and governmental figures. Lupin, on the surface, was a simple man who was easy to seduce and use for her own benefits, but the further down that Fujiko looked the more complicated and murky he became, just like the ocean’s she often found herself gazing over in the more whimsical moments of her life.

Lupin excited her for the same reasons that he concerned her. Fujiko had never thought about settling down with anyone before, but oft times she found herself imagining a quieter life with him, away from the thrills and settled in the french countryside. But then, if those dreams ever came true, he would no longer be Lupin the Third and she would no longer be Fujiko Mine.

She liked to tell herself he was just a flight of fancy, that eventually she would tire of him. Fujiko had never been all that great at lying to herself. There had never been a definitive _moment_ in which she’d realized these things about him; it had simply happened over time, in the same sort of slow daze one found themselves in when they woke up from a pleasant dream in the early morning hours.

She distracted herself from those pointless musings by turning her efforts towards Lupin’s opposite, a man who appeared complicated but was almost comically simple: Jigen Daisuke. Fujiko hadn’t expected to find much about him yet she still felt frustrated at how much of the man was shrouded in mystery. If not for his infamous reputation, it would be almost as if he simply didn’t exist and was nothing more than an elaborate hallucination. Even his past employers would simply smile at her when she inquired about him, and the few times they _did_ tell her something it was always the same; he was the best at what he did and she best be careful if she ever stepped over a line around him.

Fujiko’s interactions with him were less than favourable and she almost began to think that Jigen’s sole purpose on this earth was to get under her skin and ‘accidentally’ knick her with his bullets during one of their many jobs gone wrong. He was so simplistically loyal and stubborn and lackadaisical that it frustrated her to no end. Jigen should, by all rights, be an easy person to use and lie to, yet he consistently proved to be the hardest to hide anything from, and was always the first to catch on to her plots and schemes.

Anything she heard about him through word of mouth was hardly trustworthy, and most of it was haughty daughters of crime lords claiming to have successfully bedded him during his stay. Fujiko scoffed at them. Jigen had always been open about his lack of attraction to women yet no-one, not even _Lupin_ , absolute idiot, had caught on to this fact.

Their mutual attraction to Lupin was a melancholy, bittersweet, unspoken thing between them, and for all their gripes with each other…

Fujiko would miss him more than she cared to admit if he disappeared from their lives. Perhaps the reason that she disliked him was because of how _similar_ they were in retrospect.

Her heels clicked against the floor as she moved files back into cabinets and side-stepped old dusty boxes and upturned chairs. The building she was in had been abandoned for many years, yet the files still retained most of their legibility, despite the old ink and paper used for them. Fujiko had spent most of her night holed up in here, thumbing through Goemon’s family history, smiling when she caught a glimpse of something that reminded her of his own quirks and beliefs.

His more personal history sat untouched beside her, like a particularly taunting slice of delicious tiramisu, yet Fujiko barely spared it a glance, feeling guilty at the thought of invading this man’s privacy, specifically. Goemon was so bluntly genuine and honest that Fujiko found herself warming up to him faster than she had to anyone else. She found he was the easiest to get along with, and though he didn't necessarily trust her when she brought new jobs for them, he didn’t mind meeting with her to sit and drink and gossip, simply basking in each other’s presence.

It was an odd feeling to consider herself _safe_ around him when he could cut tanks in half like butter and perform nigh inhuman feats with little sweat to be shown for the effort. For all his skill, however, Goemon had his principles and he stuck to them more stubbornly than Jigen did his cigarette brands.

Yet still Fujiko’s curiosity lingered, fingers tapping against the pages of the book in front of her, teeth gnawing on her bottom lip as she contemplated what to do.

Taking a deep breath she grabbed Goemon’s file and opened it to a random page. The dust she blew away got into her eyes and made her cough for a good ten minutes before it settled. Fujiko made a face at the moth eaten corners of the pages, jumping with a barely contained squeal when she mistook a bit of dust to be a spider, flicking it away with a scowl.

Her eyes landed on the words of the page, scanning the details with a hesitant fervour.

_Name: Ishikawa Goemon_

_Birth Date: unknown_

_Nationality: Japanese_

“Ooo what a surprise,” she muttered, rolling her eyes. “Let’s see here...grandmother was a herbalist doctor. Grew up in a small town to the south. No siblings or cousins. Jeez, Goemon you’re making me feel silly for getting all guilty over this.”

Fujiko pouted as she skimmed over the rest of the page, boredom making her slouch in her seat until she was blowing hair out of her mouth and tapping a song she’d on the radio with her foot. It was something french that Lupin sometimes hummed to himself when he was poring over his plans and she hadn’t known it was a real song until that afternoon.

She thought back to last month, when they’d all been lounging after a relatively easy job, Jigen claiming the sofa for himself and stretching out on the cushions like the cats she sometimes saw in a rich person’s mansion. Goemon had been laying face first on the bed, exhausted from all the running, and Fujko took one of the chairs, her fingers idly scratching Lupin’s head as he dozed off, proudly mumbling that her legs made a very soft and wonderful pillow.

Such a domestic image made her smile. At the time it had simply felt _natural_ for them to lounge in such a way, as if it was a normal and expected action. The more she thought on it though - the more she remembered Lupin humming that little song and lulling them into sleep - the more it made her smile turn bitter.

Fujiko would never change herself, not really, but sometimes she hated her own whims and fancies. Sometimes she craved to go back to those small moments of peace with Lupin and Jigen and Goemon, to have a place to _belong_ for once in her life.

Breathing through her nose, Fujiko closed Goemon’s file and gently placed it back where it belonged. There was a small tidbit of information in there that she would never so much as hint at to anyone - something so personal that Fujiko resolved not to dig any deeper than she had already.

She picked up the box filled with Goemon’s medical files - things she hoped nobody would ever happen to find again - and carried it outside with her, kicking the door to the building closed with a creak of old splintering wood.

“Guess I care about you after all,” Fujiko murmured, setting the box down on the grass and throwing a lit match inside of it. She stayed there until the flames died out and the ashes crumbled amongst themselves, then turned on her heel and strolled back to her car, humming that same useless song.

Maybe this time the risk of a few ‘constants’ would be worth it.

~~_Sex: Female_ ~~

**Author's Note:**

> I have a [twitter](http://twitter.com/teatitty) if that's your kinda thing


End file.
